


screaming into a pillow (for all the dumb shit i've said)

by kaermorons



Series: Witcher Bingo Card~ [2]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Awkward Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Gen, Geralt is a big fucking dumbass, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is a Mess, Secondhand embarrassment, Social Awkwardness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:49:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaermorons/pseuds/kaermorons
Summary: Geralt of Rivia is a fucking mess. He has never gotten the hang of human interaction, ever. It's a complicated situation.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & His One (1) Braincell
Series: Witcher Bingo Card~ [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828993
Comments: 27
Kudos: 113





	screaming into a pillow (for all the dumb shit i've said)

**Author's Note:**

> Also fits my Witcher Bingo Card for:  
> \- Unexpected Idiocy  
> \- One Braincell  
> \- Shave/Haircut

Witchers supposedly didn’t feel emotions. Fear, love, regret, heartbreak, sadness, joy, they were all buried so deep it’d take a thousand pickaxes to get anywhere near them.

It was all bullshit, really.

Because there was one Witcher out there that felt quite a lot. Currently, he was feeling strong embarrassment and anxiety, in that special combination of the two that resulted in utter mortification.

Geralt of Rivia never claimed to be anywhere in the realm of “good at social interaction.” He was hardly in the running for best-spoken of the surviving Witchers of Kaer Morhen. He didn’t talk to his brothers that, though. They had other things to worry about than the times Geralt stuck his foot in his mouth. Or let his hands have free rein. Or didn’t read the situation correctly.

Like now.

He was just trying to get a godsdamned ale, he smelled like dead fish after a week in the sun, and he was riding on three days of no sleep, having hunted down one of the largest drowner nests he’d ever seen. So yes, an ale was rather in order. Unfortunately, this meant he was zoning out, waiting for the innkeeper to bring his drink over, something to tide him over while riding Roach out of town.

It’s why he felt such a panicked shock and confusion when the innkeeper said, “I love you,” like that was the most regular thing to say to a Witcher. Geralt felt his face flush; his skin was pale enough that he would have shown off quite a considerable blush, but his physiology somehow didn’t allow for that.

His physiology did, however, allow for Geralt to think the woman was speaking to him, and the politeness beaten into him from Kaer Morhen instructors forced the words from his mouth.

“I, uh, love you too,” Geralt rasped, and though his voice was rather low compared to the rest of the inn’s public room, the resulting silence told him that everyone there could hear his blunder. The innkeeper focused her eyes on Geralt, now.

“What?” she asked, a bewildered expression on her face.

“What?” Geralt answered.

It was then that Geralt saw her husband standing behind the bar, jaw dropped open in surprise. It was a silly mistake; both he and Geralt were in the same sightline the innkeeper had, but Geralt was still too old and too experienced to admit he made a gaff as large as this.

Geralt left his ale there and rode as fast as he could out of town, swearing at himself the whole time.

These moments happened much more often than Geralt cared to admit, even to himself. There was the time with the gryphon head, where the same thing happened.

The gryphon had been a bitch to kill, and he’d nearly gone toxic using his potions; the anti-toxicity potion always left him a bit loopy and out of sorts. He stumbled through town with the beast’s severed head held in one hand. He’d have to reset his shoulder when he was next alone.

The alderman’s house was warm and cozy, a far bit different from the icy drizzle outside. Geralt saw his vision go fuzzy. Shit, he needed to find a place to sleep. Maybe with the payment, he’d…

“Your payment’s in the bag, Witcher.” Geralt nodded and took the proffered coin purse, judging it heavy enough.

“You too,” he muttered, before sucking in a sharp breath.

The alderman looked at him with a stunned expression. Geralt swore under his breath, threw the still-dripping gryphon head down on the man’s desk, and ran out of the room.

Politeness, that’s what they taught him at Kaer Morhen.  _ Humans won’t like you, boy. Best to not give them many reasons for it. _ Geralt wanted to let out some anger, though. He was fucking up by way of his mouth alone far too many times. He heard word of a fight club in the Viziman underground scene, so he lurched his way past the bouncers at the door and bought in.

It was just getting started, a little informal tournament among the less-honorable nobles of the land. “Alright, who’s next? Let me see your hands!” Geralt’s went up, as did several others. “Okay, Witcher, you’re in, we’ll put you up against the Bear.”

“The what?” Geralt frowned. The man that walked out was neither a bear nor from the Witcher school it was named after, but he was big and hairy and muscled just the same.

“Alright, go!”

One by one, Geralt took down members of the club, until a mouthy little shit took a stance in the ring. They circled one another for a few seconds before he leered, “Don’t wanna rough up that pretty face, Witcher, but I will if I have to!”

Geralt, of course, didn’t hear the insult or the sarcasm (he’d hit his head on a beam just the round before, he swore) and instead tilted his head in confusion. The man was...complimenting him?

“Uh…” Geralt blanked for a second, looking the man over while still holding a defensive stance. Fuck, this was difficult. “You have beautiful...eyes?” Geralt punched him.

He only realized much, much later, after he’d sworn off fight clubs for at least fifty years, that the man had been trying to insult him.

Geralt had never felt the need to hide in his bedroll until that night.

He wasn’t getting many contracts on charm and clever wording alone, so he eventually had to seek a human barber in a larger town. He’d at least need to keep his mouth shut while getting a good shave. When the man had started working on the rest of his hair, the dreaded smalltalk began.

“Weather’s been mighty good these last weeks. Everyone’s been in spirits.”

“Hmm.”

“Noticed your swords. What is it you do for a living?” The barber asked. The fucking politeness jumped out again.

“I’m a Witcher. Uh, what do you do?”

There was a solid three seconds before the man spoke, midway through cutting out a tangled mess at the back of Geralt’s head. “...I’m a barber.”

The rest of the haircut was done in eerie silence.

Once outside, the gods saw fit to embarrass him even further. A rock that came out of fucking nowhere decided to be in his path, and Geralt tripped rather spectacularly on it. “Fuck!” he shouted, catching himself on a wall just in time…

To see a dozen toddlers and a nursemaid round a corner. The group looked at Geralt. Geralt looked at them. Then, suddenly, one squeaky voice rose up from the front.

“Fuck!!” the toddler screamed.

“Fuck! Fuck!! Fuck? Fuck fuck! Fucky fuck!” The rest of the group chimed in. The nursemaid looked faint.

“Shit!” Geralt exclaimed, trying to run the other direction.

“SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT FUCK SHIT SHIT FUCK!” the toddlers screamed back.

It haunted him for years.

There were other smaller, less-mortifying moments in his life that he was reminded of, in the wee moments between wakefulness and sleep.

A man, waving to someone. Geralt thought he was the recipient of that wave, and gave a small, polite wave back. The man had screamed and ran, as had the actual man he’d been waving to.

Geralt, walking into (what he thought was) a tavern in a little backwater town. The patrons looked rather somber. He’d asked for Est Est, this area was famous for it.

He’d walked into a funeral.

There was a werewolf hiding in a mausoleum twelve leagues away from that town. He tried not to think about the name of that town, it hurt too much. But the werewolf, now that was a completely humiliating experience.

The creature had been hiding out down there for several weeks, eating the pallbearers and ministers and stronger townspeople that wanted to come to lay it to rest, then to bless it, and then to fight the werewolf, respectively.

Geralt had been avoiding a very specific piece of his meat rations for a very long time, but he knew he needed strength before he went down there, so he ate the questionable jerky. It was...helpful. And horrible.

His stomach outright  _ gurgled _ as he descended the steps to the crypt. The gentle percolating edged into loud, angry pains, accompanied by disgusting noises. The potion he’d taken to see in the pitch-black crypt made the little snack that much more rancid in his gut, and he felt himself bloating uncomfortably. He tried to belch as softly as he could, but his body had other plans, clearly.

The loudest, most cheek-flappingly powerful fart Geralt had ever heard ripped straight out of his ass and bounced off the stone walls several thousand times before the scent hit him, and then several thousand times after that. Geralt had smelled some nasty things in his career as a Witcher. He’d been covered in entrails and eighteen-day-old sweat. He’d once not washed for two months. A wyvern had shat on him once.

But this was something  _ different. _

Suddenly, the werewolf lurched around a corner, vomiting profusely and begging for death. Geralt, being a  _ polite _ Witcher, obliged, but he left the werewolf and the remaining stench his ass had produced down in there to die. He didn’t talk about that contract when winter came, and had only warned the mayor that the crypt was most likely toxic, due of course to the werewolf corpse.

He shat for three days straight. He learned his lesson about his rations’ shelf life.

But really, he just could not get the hang of things like words or etiquette.

Handshakes took him awhile to get used to; the first time a human had extended his hand out to him, Geralt had slapped it away, unsure of what the fuck the man was doing. The man had, luckily, breezed over Geralt’s reaction. When Geralt saw humans greeting each other like that later, the embarrassment burned that much brighter.

Not before he’d broken someone’s wrist for offering a handshake too quickly.

There were a lot more towns than Blaviken that Geralt couldn’t return to, even though the people he’d embarrassed himself in front of were most likely dead by then.

There were a fuckton of times Geralt’s mouth got ahead of him.

The first several dozen times he responded to a sneeze with “fuck you,” Geralt didn’t see the full extent of the nasty glares. Perhaps that was just a Kaer Morhen thing, and not a matter of being polite. Besides, most of them didn’t cover their mouths and noses when they sneezed.

Humans were disgusting.

Why couldn’t Geralt get the hang of them, then?

He took to rehearsing what he was going to say in his head, dozens of times, before he went into a town.

Until there was the hangover from too many bottles of Est Est, and Geralt hadn’t quite decided on what he was going to say to the innkeep. He’d been torn between several phrases. “I need a room” seemed as much to the point as he could get, but it definitely showed his cards a little too much. He had been on the road for three days, and needed a good bed in a room with a lock on the door. “What’s your fee” could’ve worked. It did, however, make the entire transaction much more impersonal, and Geralt needed a contract. He didn’t need the innkeeper hating him for getting straight to the point. Maybe putting his coin down on the table would work. He wouldn’t have to say anything. Then again, he might underestimate (or worse, overestimate) the price for a few nights in the inn. “How much do I pay” could be the better choice, but definitely made it seem like Witchers had a different price than other (see: human) clientele.

He ruminated over the whole thing for miles and miles, listlessly daydreaming and growing more anxious the further he and Roach got.  _ I need a room. What’s your fee. How much do I pay. Coin. _ The thoughts rattled around his brain like rocks down a cliffside.

The moment he realized he’d essentially stabled Roach and walked into the inn on autopilot, he was fairly glad he’d done this whole routine before. Better to let instincts take over.

Or not.

Instead of  _ I need a room, what’s your fee, how much do I pay, _ or just slamming down a bag of coins, Geralt did all four at once.

“I need your pee.”

He didn’t come back to grab his coin purse. Eskel somehow returned it to him that winter.

And then he met a bard.

The bard was so flighty and full of idealistic views of the world, Geralt had no idea what to do with him. Sure, let him go along. He’d see how maladjusted Geralt was and leave.

But he didn’t leave.

And he took all of Geralt’s blusters in stride, always there to save the day with a quick word. Geralt, tired after a hunt and still fighting off bruxa venom, hadn’t looked where he was leading Roach, and the same stupid thing in the “I need your pee” town happened. He hit Jaskier with Roach’s flank, and his mouth warred between two responses: “I’m so fucking sorry” and “Are you okay?”

And yet, Geralt frantically shouted, “ARE YOU FUCKING SORRY?!”

The silence on the road was absolutely awful. Geralt rode ahead to the town and screamed in a pillow in the room he rented. Luckily, Jaskier had caught up with him, and chattered to him about the lovely stew they had downstairs in the kitchen. Geralt was sure the other shoe was going to drop, that Jaskier would gently, heartbreakingly gently, tell him he’s probably not qualified to have a mouth, and leave.

None of that happened, despite all of Geralt’s fatalistic daydreams.

On the bright side, the town had a contract. Geralt completed it within a night, and came back in the early morning, hoping to catch a few hours of meditation before they set out again, but Jaskier was still up, barely awake, and slouched over a notebook full of scribbles Geralt couldn’t read.

Geralt and Jaskier watched each other with utter softness before Jaskier stood, hands reaching out for him. It had been a difficult hunt, a merchant’s daughter turned by a vampire and out for blood on the town. Geralt hadn’t wanted to kill her, but contracts were contracts. Her dying screams still echoed in his brain.

So he went in for the hug.

He realized he’d been wrong about Jaskier’s intentions the moment the bard stiffened in his embrace, hands frozen on the buckles of Geralt’s armor. “Geralt?” Jaskier asked, not moving.

“You’re trying to take off my armor, aren’t you?”

“Yes...but did you need a hug, too?”

“I need to go drown myself.”

“As romantic as that may be, I’d have to advise against that, my dear Witcher.” Geralt let Jaskier wriggle around in his grasp until the sullied armor fell to the floor. “There. Better. Now, we hug.”

And so Geralt did.

It was nice to have someone around like Jaskier. Very nice.


End file.
